After rocky road, Aggies return home to face WAC foes

LAS CRUCES - Once an overwhelming league favorite, New Mexico State's volleyball team faces its first bit of adversity in conference play.

New Mexico State dropped its first two Western Athletic Conference matches last weekend in road losses at Bakersfield and Utah Valley.

After winning their first six league matches, the Aggies find themselves in third place in conference entering home matches this weekend against Grand Canyon (Thursday, 7 p.m.) and Texas Pan American (Saturday, 3 p.m.) at the Pan American Center.

"We had the goal of running the table and we have the talent to do it, but the level of play hasn't been consistent enough," said head coach Mike Jordan, whose team is 6-2 in WAC play. "We weren't competing as well as we need to compete."

This week's matches are the Aggies first home matches since Oct. 6. NMSU heads back on the road for their next three matches before closing the season with four-straight home matches.

"We looked tired (against Utah Valley) on Saturday, but that's not an excuse," Jordan said. "Everyone has to travel and once in a while, you get stuck with back-to-back weekends."

As far as on-the-court troubles, the same ball control issues that has plagued the Aggies from time to time surfaced on the road.

"We struggled in serve-receive and digging the ball," senior middle hitter Desiree Scott said. "We left a few on the floor that could have helped us out a lot."

More concerning however was the Aggies folding when the matches got tough.

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"Once our confidence is shot, we have rebuild that and we are not doing that," Scott said. "We get down on ourselves. We know we are a good volleyball team and we need to always play like one."

The Aggies won the first two sets at Bakersfield but lost the match in five.

"They scored six of the first eight points in the third and started getting their confidence," Jordan said. "We really struggled with that pressure."

The Bakersfield match carried over into Saturday's match, where the Aggies were swept.

"They jumped out on us and got us on our heels," Jordan said.

During the second set in Utah, Jordan started pulling players from the lineup. It was a move that could continue, Jordan said.

"We are going in with a normal lineup, but if you are not playing well, I'm going to sit you down and give someone else a chance," Jordan said. "If they don't play well, I may have a quicker trigger with a couple of them."

Perhaps the Aggies just need a couple home matches to regain their confidence and return to the form that helped them get off to a 6-0 start in league play.

"Utah (Valley) just wanted it more than we did," Scott said. "There is a little bit of trust issues right now. We need to bond more and be able to trust each other more. We are working on that."

Jason Groves can be reached at 575-541-5459

IF YOU GO

Aggie volleyball is hosting two WAC matches this week. Thursday's match will be played against Grand Canyon at 7 p.m. while Saturday the team will host Texas Pan American at 3 p.m. Both matches will be at the Pan American Center. Thursday's contest can be seen on AggieVision, while Saturday's match can be heard on radio at KSNM-AM 570.